Mistress Death, you are welcome
by Lizella
Summary: It really did not matter any longer. He knew it was a cowards way to end. But why go on when there is noone else left?


Author's note: I am an evil, cruel, sadistic person. I am a true Slytherin at heart (at least I've been told so, and I was damned proud of it). Don't believe me? Well, just read on! Still I do not own any of the characters, JK Rowling does. And I hope I will not inspire her with my work! Oh and any ships fully intended.

Death. It is all around him. In him. In all of them. He looks around and all he can see is sole death. She has cast her dark wings over a place of refugee. A place once known for being a fortress in the night, a shelter for the last resistance. Once upon a time...a long time ago. Even fairytales have to end. All that has passed. Death has conquered everything. Even the last core of freedom. Even Hogwarts.

He wanders around, just one restless spirit. And he watches them. The dead ones, lying on the ground, their bodies bent in inhumanly ways. Too young, too spirited, too alive to die. Their faces are scarred, their corpses mangled, blood spilling out or having already dried leaving ugly brown marks on their pale skins. Their clothes torn off, ripped apart. Their hands full of blood, their own, their enemies, their friends, their brothers blood. Hair, brown, golden, red, black, silver, ripped out or caressing their corpses. Their faces pale and white, cheeks sunken in, mouths gaping open as if they would ask "Why?". But what touches him most, are their eyes. Their open hollow eyes. Staring forever into the nothingness. He could never bear these eyes.

So he walks, from one of them to the other. Closing their eyes. Murmuring silent prayers. Pulling them into comfortable positions. Trying to treat them as humans. Even in their death.

He knows they will never again notice. Noone will. He has no idea why he does it. Maybe for himself. So he will have something to do, anything to keep him occupied. To keep him from ending it all...too soon.

A boy, not yet a man, brown hair, who used to be afraid of everything and yet turned into one of the true heroes. A few years before he had asked this boy, what he feared the most. The answer had entertained all of the students and all except one teacher for quite some time. He had just been a child then. Time had passed. There had been worse people to fear.

This boy who had lost the sanity of his parents, his grandmother and his life to a war as useless and cruel as all wars are. He pulled the golden and red robes straight and closed the childish brown eyes forever. "You never may have believed so, but you truly were a hero. Your parents would have been so proud of you. As am I."

A woman. Once so lively and happy. A sunshine in her life. Even in death she had kept her style. She had insisted in facing the final battle in purpur robes and with bright yellow hair. Severus had sneered then, but he could have sworn that he had caught a small smile on the man's grim face. She had been like an ever changing blooming flower. And she had been torn from the living in the prime of her life. Never again would she cheer him up, no more amaze with new unknown hair colours and no more stumble over a non-existing step. "Goodnight, sunshine. You made us laugh when all else we could do was cry." With that he closed her eyes and pressed a silent kiss onto her forehead.

An old man. His silver hair and beard still glistening in the moonlight. On his face, even in death, the small smile. That encouraging expression he had always worn. If it weren't for his eyes. The blue eyes no longer held their sparkle, all magic of them drained. "We won. You won. Wasn't that what you always wanted? And yet, what of it? Who is here to celebrate our victory? Who, Albus? Me? No." he sadly shook his tired and worn head, the hair more grey than brown now "I will not feast. With whom? When there is no one left." Closing the old wizard's eyes was a hard task. He had been their leader. The guarding figure of the light. And his eyes had shone them the way. Still with a slow movement of his hand he closed the sparkling blue, never to shine again.

A young girl. Red hair. One of the many young redheaded children that lay on this field. Her robes torn apart. Her naked body exposed. As it had been to one of them. He did not know the child molesters name. He never would. He didn't want to. He could see her, the Death Eater grabbing her, tearing off her robes. Her brothers, trying to rescue her. All of them, trying everything to save their little sister. Then they fell. One by one. Struck down with the curses of Voldemorts followers. They all lay sprawled in a circle around their sister. The twins closed to each other, even in death united against the world. Never to joke again. Gently he covered her with a blanket. He arranged all of them in a circle. The father, dying like so many fathers before him, brave and stout, defending his family. In the end he truly had proven to be much more than the muggle-loving fool the ministry had thought him to be. The mother, her arms still on her hips, the position of a tigress, willing to claw her enemies to death, if they hadn't clawed her first. The three oldest sons, united again, having forgotten about minor facts as wizard ministers and laws. The youngest son, his hand still clutching that of his best friend and only love. It had taken them seven years to notice what had been hidden behind those useless quarrels all the time. And when they finally saw, a month had been the only time left for them. Now the redheaded boy still grasped onto the feminine hand of the brightest witch of her age. Both of them lost to the world forever. One of the only real families left had been extinguished.

He then strode towards a black figure. As in life he lay apart from all the others. Even in death he had not been capable of fitting in. Dark red blood covered his body and made a terrifying contrast to his white hollow skin. He had died defending his Slytherins from members of his own house. How must that have felt? Having to kill your own children in order to protect others? And after more than twenty years he finally got to say "Im sorry, Severus." Not that the raven-haired man would ever know.

A boy, his blonde hair almost white in the dim light, having thrown away his wand after having killed the first, last and only person ever. His grey eyes still reflecting his sorrow, the slightly parted mouth with the silent "Forgive me, father" still on his lips. Even as a Slytherin, even as the only Malfoy heir, even as the son of one of the most loyal death-eaters, his skin had managed to remain unscathed. There was no dark mark burned into his young alabaster skin. Would dying for the dark side have felt any different?

The goddess of wisdom, who had remained calm even in the face of death. Her black hair still in a tight bun as she fought to protect her loved ones. Fought bravely, as a Gryffindor, at the side of her mentor, friend and lover. The lioness who had protected her litter by all means.

Then there was he. Not the boy-who-lived any longer. His appearance, so much like his father's, having a sense of glory, even in death. The black hair unruly as ever, the scar had vanished, together with his last breath. He had died the way it had been foreseen, defying the Dark Lord. But did it matter? He leaned over the suddenly so frail body. Hesitating a moment, once again lost in these amazingly green eyes, Lily's eyes, before finally closing them. There was no boy-who-lived any more, only the young-man-who-had-died.

...

In the end he was left alone. The lonely figure of a tall, worn man left to stand in the middle of a once beautiful grassy yard. Surrounded by dead. And death came to him. He had given them all the peace he could now. There was nothing more left to do for him. Death knew. She silently drew closer. He shivered and pulled his shabby brown robe tighter onto his freezing body. He remained cold. Death sweeped even nearer. And as he sighed and drew a small phiole with a clear black liquid out of his pocket, death smiled. After a seconds hesitation he drank the fluid in one quick swallow. And death who had waited for him so long spread her wings over him. She enveloped the form of a broken man. Finally she had taken one Remus J. Lupin.

He knew that it was a coward's way to end. He didn't care. After all he had seen how true heroes had ended. And it had not been a pleasant death! Had it been one worth dying for?

There are no winners in war. Only those who loose less.


End file.
